Concept #1: Washington Heights, the urban bog of the concrete jungle that is Manhattan. I was taught that its name came from Fort Washington, which was a fort at the highest point of the island during the American Revolutionary War. What was once a symbolic landmark of victorious uprising, is now a ghetto for Hispanic and African American minorities. A ghetto that I had once known as my home. As far as I knew, my whole world was 166th and Amsterdam. As I grew more comfortable with my neighborhood, my mother grew more weary. I could tell she couldn’t stand living there and she wanted a way out. Those times were hard for us, we shared an apartment with “Mama”, my great-grandmother who, as you could imagine, was old enough to require the assistance of a home health aid. She also owned the largest apartment in the building that occupied most of the first floor. When times were hard, she would rent out some of the empty bedrooms to strangers who needed a place to stay. My mother wasn’t exactly comfortable with such risky living conditions so she decided to move. Since she was a single mother, she was always making decisions that she thought were best for us. I never really got to meet my father, I was told that he died when I was just a year old. My mother always told me it was for the best, she said that he would’ve never been a part of my life had he been around anyway. I never felt that great of a loss for my father, though, I would be lying to say that I am not curious to know what he was like.
COLLEGE LIST
Pace University
SAT Critical Reading 490-580, SAT Math 490-590, ACT 20-26
Concept #1:
Washington Heights, the urban bog of the concrete jungle that is Manhattan. I was taught that its name came from Fort Washington, which was a fort at the highest point of the island during the American Revolutionary War. What was once a symbolic landmark of victorious uprising, is now a ghetto for Hispanic and African American minorities. A ghetto that I had once known as my home. As far as I knew, my whole world was 166th and Amsterdam. As I grew more comfortable with my neighborhood, my mother grew more weary. I could tell she couldn’t stand living there and she wanted a way out. Those times were hard for us, we shared an apartment with “Mama”, my great-grandmother who, as you could imagine, was old enough to require the assistance of a home health aid. She also owned the largest apartment in the building that occupied most of the first floor. When times were hard, she would rent out some of the empty bedrooms to strangers who needed a place to stay. My mother wasn’t exactly comfortable with such risky living conditions so she decided to move. Since she was a single mother, she was always making decisions that she thought were best for us. I never really got to meet my father, I was told that he died when I was just a year old. My mother always told me it was for the best, she said that he would’ve never been a part of my life had he been around anyway. I never felt that great of a loss for my father, though, I would be lying to say that I am not curious to know what he was like.
COLLEGE LIST
Pace University
Pratt Insitute
Arcadia University
Hunter
CUNY City College
SUNY Oswego
SUNY New Paltz
University of New Haven